


The sea you hear me in

by windandthestars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Boston, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Private School, Prompt Bracket Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 00:20:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16186193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: She’s a great debate partner, but he’d never asked about her personal life, hadn’t been sure what to ask without having the conversation lead to the usual volley of questions, the half-truths he’d have to spin if she’d asked about his, so they weren’t exactly friends, even if that’s what she needs right now.__Mac and Will in private school in Boston circa 2011.





	The sea you hear me in

**Author's Note:**

> I know I've left some room for backstory expansion. I'm of two minds about continuing, but I figured I should post this since I had it done.
> 
> Title from the poem 'Elm' by Sylvia Plath.

It’s well after hours, the school’s locked up and he’s supposed to be heading home. He wasn’t supposed to be back here, but the bus stop he needed was on the other side of the sports field, he had extenuating circumstances, whoever was under the bleachers certainly didn’t. Neither of them should be here, but that hadn’t prevented him from stopping as he crouches down to peer into the gloom.

“MacKenzie?”

He knows it’s her before her head snaps up, before he even realizes she’s been crying, although he should’ve known. It’d been her sniffling that had tipped him off that someone was under here to begin with.

“Will?”

“That’s me.” He says a little dorkily. Normally he’d kick himself for something like that, for sounding so ridiculous but it’s Mac; MacKenzie, or McHale depending on what kind of mood he was in, he’d never actually called her Mac, not to her face, not out loud.

“I needed some place quiet.” She’s attempting an explanation before he has a chance to ask if she’s all right, not that he’d know what to say if she said she wasn’t. She’s a great debate partner, but he’d never asked about her personal life, hadn’t been sure what to ask without having the conversation lead to the usual volley of questions, the half-truths he’d have to spin if she’d asked about his, so they weren’t exactly friends, even if that’s what she needs right now.

“Yeah,” he agrees without meaning to, digging in his pocket for the handkerchief his mom always insisted he carry, thankful for once he never put up half the fuss he wished he would.

“I know a better spot.” He offers her the handkerchief and then his hand to help her out from under the bleachers, sheltering the top of her head as she straightens before he slips back around the bleachers, back onto his original path with Mac behind him still sniffling but seemingly less distressed.

Everybody's gone home for the night, but he has a key, it’s one of the perks of helping out with the after school programs all the time. It isn’t much to look at, the sports shed they’re supposed to use for something but use for nothing. It isn’t much, but it’s clean and quiet, private even as he folds back one of the window shutters while he listens for her as she follows him into the gloom, almost silently sliding under the table along the far wall, wedging her knees up to her chest.

It’s quiet and private, she’ll have whatever time she needs without having to worry being interrupted again so he's tempted to tell her to lock up when she's done, but with the way she's watching him, forlorn and a little curious, she doesn't seem to mind that he's here, so he slides down to join her on the floor.

“Is Jefferson getting its ass kicked?” He doubts her school house getting demoted, again, would make her blink. Even when she was talking smack before a debate she never seemed particular invested in the outcome. She liked winning, particularly when she knew she'd made the better argument, but she wasn't competitive. Even so, he doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn't want to come out and directly ask her what had happened, not if she doesn't want to say, but she clearly wants the company. She's clinging to his handkerchief like it's a lifeline, the corner of it peeking out of the edge of her clenched fist.

“Maybe.” She tries for a laugh but it's a watery sound. “I don't, I don't know.”

He nods and she sniffs, manages a smile, wobbly and uncertain, and he smiles back, relieved to see she’d appreciated that.

“My mom, she,” she stops to fumble with her phone, unlocking the screen before she hands it to him.

There isn't much there in the chain of text messages. There isn't much there and he thinks maybe there should be because a quick note saying her dad was in the hospital but doing fine wasn't as reassuring as it could be.

“Where is he, do you know?”

“DC. I don't know. He's been working. I told him to take more time off but—”

She looks at him so imploringly that he nods automatically. “Your mom said he's OK.”

“She always says that.”

“Because he is?” He offers hopefully as she sniffs again.

“But what if—”

“He’s OK right now.” He says gently and she nods.

“He's so old.” For a moment she looks like she's going to laugh but then she starts crying again, not big wracking sobs like he's half expecting, given how upset she clearly is, but a torrent of silent tears that he thinks might be worse. 

“If you keep that up I'm going to have to hug you and then we'll have to go dock Jefferson and Addams ten points each for inappropriate conduct.”

She doesn't laugh. He wasn't expecting her to, but she does hold out a hand, the one with his soggy handkerchief in it, until he scoots closer and she leans to tip her head onto his shoulder.

“I'm scared.” She whispers after a moment and he wonders why she's trusting him with this: was he in the right place at the right time or was it something else? They had been spending more time together lately, running in the same circles, but it wasn't as if it'd been intentional. He hardly knew anything about her, but he did know her dad had been sick on and off for a while; she'd missed a debate last year because her dad had been in the hospital. Sloan had skipped the usual post-debate team lunch to check on her, but he hadn't known it was serious, not in the way he thinks it could be.

“You’re going to be OK.” It isn’t much, but it’s the best he can offer her even after he’s had a moment to consider what to say. He’s never been good at this, he always worried about making things worse, but this time the reassurance seems to help. She’s calmer now, arm draped over his knee, voice steady when she asks quietly, “can we get dinner. I mean if you don’t have some place—”

She glances at him and he nods. “Yeah, we can do that, although I’m not sure how much cash—”

He shifts trying to get at his wallet in his bag and she stops him with a hand on his knee. “I’ll— it’s fine.”

*

When they head in toward the city he thinks maybe she has a specific place in mind but they pass Back Bay and Downtown Crossing, pass all the most obvious places to get food so he isn’t sure what she’s intending when she stands and moves toward the door as they approach State Street. Faneuil Hall he figures is a possibility, but she moves away from the exit to the street and sticks with the crowd, making her way up a half flight of stairs and back down as he follows.

There’s a connection they can make; they’re practically at the end of the line but out the other way is the airport which might mean something, although he’s not entirely sure what that could be. He considers the aquarium, but it would’ve been faster to walk and she’s shown no interest in that, slipping onto the next train, pausing only briefly to make sure he’s following.

This train’s more crowded than the last one, so he lets her take the last seat and stands, getting jostled, past the aquarium and under what he knows must be water until she’s on her feet and they’re moving again, off the train and up the escalator onto the street.

It’s going to take him an hour to get home. He recognizes the fact idly, realizing not where they are exactly but knowing generally how far they’ve travelled, how much backtracking he’s going to have to do before he can catch a bus or the train that would, at the very least, get him to the right neighborhood, but he isn’t worried about that now. He’s worried about Mac, who’s looking like she might start crying again although he isn’t sure why.

“Fried chicken?”

He doesn’t know if it’s an offer or an observation but he shrugs and nods and follows along when she ducks across the street, through traffic, into the white washed building with the oversize menu plastered on the window.

She’s ordering before he realizes what’s happening. The place is small, clean and white with a couple of tables along the wall by the door, the counter where Mac’s standing is a few paces in. None of that throws him, it’s the fact that she’s launched into a torrent of Spanish that does. Pollo frito he recognizes— they were both in the same Spanish class last year, he’s not entirely hopeless— but the rest of it isn’t about food, isn’t about anything he would recognize if it weren’t for the way she hasn’t stopped to take a breath, the way her words keep dropping off at the end as she swallows.

“I don’t like coleslaw. MacKenzie,” he tries again when she doesn’t seem to realize that he’s there. It’s a ridiculous thing to say, he isn’t entirely sure coleslaw’s even on the menu, but it’s enough to get her attention and that’s all that matters.

“What?” Her forehead crinkles up and he has to stop himself from smiling at the sight, the way her attention shifts over so completely to focus on the fact that he’s an idiot.

“I don’t have a clue what you just ordered.”

“Chicken,” she says like it should be obvious, “whatever they have extra of for sides, and a couple of flan.”

With the way the word rolls off her tongue the flans seems to be the most important items, so he raises his eyebrows at the mention of them knowing she’ll want to explain.

“They’re the best.”

He isn’t sure if there’s something she intends to come after that because she’s stopped by the appearance of a woman behind the counter, a woman who bustles over and starts berating the guy who’d been taking their order in a rapid fire Spanish he has no hope of following.

He recognizes his name, _a friend_ , in the middle of Mac’s reply but he doesn’t catch much more. He isn’t paying attention to the specifics. He’s too caught up in the way she’s looking like she’s going to start crying again and he’s not sure how to interrupt without looking like a jerk. Mac obviously knows these people, she isn’t at all surprised by the hug she’s enveloped in when the woman makes her way around the counter, but it takes him some time to figure out why. It takes a moment for the conversation to slow down enough that he can follow it again.

Her dad must work around here, in the neighborhood. Will had never bothered to look up the details, and he certainly hadn’t asked, but he knows he runs a not-for-profit, lobbying Sloan had suggested once, but it’s a lot more than that, community outreach at the very least Will’s realizing because there’s real concern, not the worry of acquaintances, but a real warmth, one Mac’s slowly trying to extricate herself from as she worries her bottom lip making assurances: she wouldn’t be alone, she and Will were going to hang out, Steve or his wife Sheila would stop by later, someone would check in on her, update her.

*

They leave the restaurant with more food than what Mac had ordered, but he figures that’s not unusual given her total lack of surprise at the number of bags they’re carrying as she sets off up the street telling him to watch for cars.

They don’t go far, a handful of blocks, but he’s weary of the traffic, the odd corners, too many streets coming together in what he thinks ought to be a roundabout or two, but Mac makes her way through with ease, stopping at the last corner to fish her keys out before unlocking the door to a townhouse toward the far end of the block.

“We’re on the top floor.”

He follows her up the two flights of stairs without comment, carefully shouldering the door shut behind him as Mac makes her way through the apartment. It’s a small awkwardly constructed space, but not unusual for the neighborhood he assumes, given the number of similar buildings they’d walked past.

They’re in the living room, the bathroom and the kitchen directly to his right, tucked into the space left behind the stairwell they’d just come up. There’s another door, to Mac’s bedroom he assumes due to the pile of books stacked to hold the door open. It has to be a small room, given the size of the kitchen and the portion of the living room it shares a wall with, but he figures she must not mind too much because she’s clearly taken over the living room. The space is clean, organized, but there are stacks of books and papers, cups of pens scattered across most of the surfaces, even the couch has its share of detritus: an empty plate and a discarded copy of Othello. Either her parents had been gone for longer than he’d thought or they didn’t mind the mess.

“I think we’re out of hot sauce.” Mac reappears from the kitchen with a couple of plates and a handful of silverware, a bottle of salsa verde tucked between her elbow and her body.

“That’s fine.” He still doesn’t know what they’d ended up with, although it smells amazing, and even if he did, he isn’t sure what the appropriate condiment would be. Up until last year when he’d started at the Academy he hadn’t had much that came with anything other than ketchup or barbeque sauce.

*

She’s quiet while they eat, which is fine with him. He’s as intrigued by the food as he is by the space they’re occupying so he takes his time studying both, careful not to look rude, careful not to look like he’s prying or staring. He cares less about looking like an idiot, Mac he’s sure has spent enough time with him to know he’s not some sort of suave teacher’s pet, so he doesn’t mind the way she giggles softly at the face he pulls at the yucca fries.

“Not a fan?”

He shakes his head, considering. “They’re all right. Not what I expected.”

She nods at that, understanding, looking amused enough that he rolls his eyes just to see her smile brighten for a moment.

He’s suggested they get started on some of their homework. He hadn’t intended to stay but she hasn’t mentioned her dad since they’d left the restaurant and he figures that must be a good thing. She’s distracted now; she’s been smiling on and off for a while and he doesn’t want to leave her, not when he knows he’ll be taking that smile with him.

“Did you finish that essay we’re supposed to write?” He asks as she digs into the last of the flan, her spoon poised midair as she replies.

“The English one?”

“Yeah.”

“Last week.”

“Last week?” He shakes his head at her knowing he should’ve guessed she would’ve tackled that first, the easiest of the assignments, even though he knows she must have a pile of bio and math to get through the same way he did. “Sloan let you get away with that?”

He’s teasing. Sloan was always helping Mac with her math, the two of them with their heads bent together at the desk in the corner before they started debate prep or at a table in the corner of the lunch room. He spent most of his lunches with guys from the school’s sports teams, but he never failed to notice them, the two girls quiet and studious in the corner.

*

“No math tonight?”

She glances over to where he has his biology textbook open on the arm of the chair wedged next to the couch. “Did you want my book?”

He smiles at that. He isn’t the best math student, he doesn’t have a head for numbers the way Sloan does, but he’d never struggled with it either. Most days he managed to finish his math homework by the time he left school. It saved him from having to lug another book home. Mac he knew did much the opposite; unless Sloan cornered her with an offer to help Mac would put it off as long as she could. “I thought I might be able to help.”

She frowns and groans rolling her head across her shoulders. “It’s all right.”

He raises his eyebrows and waits until she sighs. She isn’t happy about his offer, she clearly wants to tell him no, but she pulls the book from her bag and hands it to him.

He’s seen Sloan help her, but he’s never paid enough attention to know how, so he sits and waits figuring he’ll be able to figure it out or that Mac would say something but she only sits and stares at the problem she’d already started, the numbers lined up down one column of the page.

Do the math he wants to tell her. It’s all right there, but that seems to be the problem, the math. She’s slow and obviously frustrated by how long it’s taking her to make her way through the problem, but she is working on it, lips moving silently as she scratches out a two replacing it with a one.

“You can use scrap paper.” He fishes an extra sheet out of one of his folders and slides it over by her elbow.

She ignores him, erasing what little work she’s done and he reaches over to still her hand, draw her attention. “Write it out over here.”

In preparation for the end of year exam they weren’t allowed calculators at this point in the class, but there’s still no reason for her to try and hold everything in her head even if she seems not to have realized that. While she’s rewritten the basic components of the problem, she’s still trying to sort through the math in her head. 

“MacKenzie,” he says softly, and then, “here,” pulling the paper closer to write the various components out separately. It looks a bit like something you’d find in a grade school primer, a fact that makes her scowl darkly at the page, but she pulls it back toward herself and polishes off the math in much less time.

“That’s right.” He assures her when she pauses, considering the answer she ultimately comes up with and he sees the corners of her mouth twitch, she’s pleased with herself but hesitant to show it. “Let’s do another one.”

She isn’t happy about it but she works through the next one, letting him write out the basic components so she can solve them then box off her answer at the end of the column.

“You’ve got this.” He says when he sees another smile, still hesitant but bigger this time and she shakes her head disagreeing.

“Sloan—”

“Is some sort of genius with this stuff. I wouldn’t—”

“I can’t turn that in to Mr. Lantieri.” She says it with such finality that he hesitates for a moment to disagree.

“I think—”

“It’s embarrassing.” She’s exasperated, although he can’t tell if it’s with him or with herself so he waits. “I shouldn’t have to.”

She doesn’t finish the sentiment but he knows what she means, she’s smart, at one of the best schools in the state, but she’s writing out basic math functions to carry ones and make sure she doesn’t miss a zero or two in her long division.

Frankly, he doubted Mr. Lantieri would care what his students were turning in on scrap paper, it all got destroyed anyway, and if it got one of his students out of extra lessons and in to something else, like the student volunteer corp, then Will knew Mr. Lantieri would be pleased.

“Just use it for homework.” He suggests, “it’ll go faster.”

“Yeah.” That’s an idea that appeals to her, he can see that, so he doesn’t press the issue, just reaches over to flip the page of her textbook, point out the next problem.

She understands the concepts. There’s a couple of things she doesn’t know, new stuff, so he walks her through the problems, both of them peering down at the book held between them when he hears a door click shut and a dry laugh that makes Mac’s head snap up.

“Sheila.” Mac sounds confused staring at the woman by the front door.

“Your sister wanted to stop by but she’s getting the house ready for your parents.”

“Steve?”

“Isn’t going to hear a word about,” she pauses and Mac sighs.

“Will’s helping me with my math homework.”

“Well that’s a decent excuse.”

“It’s not an excuse.” Mac’s angry. It’s not the quiet irritation he’s used to, but a real, wounded anger that darkens her frown. “I have a test next week and I’d rather not fail.”

“You couldn’t meet at the library?”

“It closes at eight.”

“All right.” Sheila backs off with a smile that does nothing to dispel Mac’s anger, but that doesn’t seem to bother her. “I brought a couple of things your mom said—”

“No.” Mac pushes the book into his lap so she can get up. “I don’t want—”

“Mac—”

“I’m not going.” The words are loud and a bit explosive. For a moment Sheila doesn’t say anything, her expression softening.

“Mac.”

“I’m not.”

“Your dad’s going to need someplace to,” Sheila pauses as Mac takes a couple of steps toward the kitchen. “He’d like to see you.”

“I can visit.” Mac’s voice is soft, quivering in a way that makes him ache for her. If she’d looked scared and heartbroken before, she sounds it now.

“I know that sister of yours is a piece of work—”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Honey, they’re not going to sell the apartment out from under you.”

“Mom would.”

This sounds like something he shouldn’t be a part of, a conversation he has no right to witness, but there’s no way he could leave without drawing attention to the fact that he’s there so he stays quiet: suddenly, seemingly enraptured by the biology problem he’d been working on before he’d offered to help Mac with her homework.

He misses part of the conversation as they move into the kitchen and tries to ignore the rest of it until he hears Sheila leave with a “make sure he’s home at a decent hour,” like he’s the one that’s going to get in trouble if he keeps hanging around.

“Sorry.” Mac’s apologetic in an angry sort of way, wiping at her eyes until he pats the couch beside him and she falls onto the seat, presses up next to him.

“It’s all right.” He offers her a smile hoping it’ll reassure her. 

“When I said, earlier, I didn’t think she’d actually show up. I didn’t want Rita to worry.” 

“It’s all right.”

“You’re not leaving are you?” It seems to pain her to finish the question but she does, careful and deliberate.

“Do you want me to?”

She shakes her head, a little too hard, a little too fast and he has to resist the urge to reach out and touch her, stop her.

“All right then. We could work on biology if you’ve had enough math for the night.”

“Could we do it again?”

“The math?”

“Another night.” She clarifies and he nods. “Even in Arlington?”

“At your sister’s?” He infers, “yeah.”

“You’d have to stay for dinner.”

“That’s fine.”

“Will.” She’s skeptical, but he knows what dinner means, her sister and her parents and whoever else happened to be there. He knows how family dinners work, how awkward they might be, but he knew if she asked he’d be there.

“What teenage boy turns down free food?”

“Oh,” she considers that and smiles fleetingly at the joke. “Yeah. It’s not very good food.”

“That’s fine.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” He’s given up on the pretense of doing homework and sets his book and notes aside so he can turn toward her a bit.

“You’re being nice.”

“Am I normally not—”

“No, that’s not—” She cuts him off quickly, apologetically. “It’s just we don’t really hang out and we fight a lot.”

He has to stop himself from laughing, has to press his fingers into his thigh to stop himself from smiling. “How many siblings do you have?”

“Four.” She frowns at him confused.

“And you think we fight?”

“I— They’re all a lot older.”

“And perfect angels?” He prods.

“I, they— they debate things.”

“Susie never pulled Annie’s hair?”

“What?”

“We’re debate partners. We’re not supposed to agree.”

“It’s just, Sloan—”

“Oh boy.” He can’t help but chuckle and she stops.

“I meant—”

He shakes his head at her. “Don’t leave me hanging, McHale.”

“It’s only, well,” she sighs, “you like to tease me.”

“I do.” He’s grinning, he knows he is, but he doesn’t want to stop. “I shouldn’t. It drives you nuts, but,” he shakes his head again then shrugs. 

Mac frowns at him, but it’s an amused sort of frown, the one he knows means she’s trying to puzzle something out, usually him, but not always. Not always, although this time he knows that’s the most likely option.

“Could you,” she pauses over the words and he waits knowing she’ll have to finish before it’s safe to answer. “On the couch, stay?”

He wonders if she’d noticed he hadn’t called anyone, hadn’t had to call anyone. He’d had a cellphone for years, a prepaid plan he paid for himself with his birthday money, money he made doing odd jobs, but he hardly ever used it to call home. His mom worked odd shifts, either swing shift or overnight, she wasn’t likely to notice he was missing even now that they’d moved into a place where his room didn’t have it’s own door into the stairwell outside the apartment, and Robbie was good with the girls, better than he was, the three of them were used to fending for themselves.

He didn’t need to call home, wouldn’t need to call home but that didn’t mean he should stay, he knew that. He didn’t know what she intended, what she meant, although he wasn’t going to assume. She’d said the couch and he figured she meant it, he’d insist on it either way, but he wasn’t sure if she should’ve offered. Study sessions, dinner was one thing, but he knew what most people thought about teenage boys and their daughters, knew it’d be a risk not so much for him but for Mac.

“I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“I don’t want to be alone.” The words come out all at once, in a way he’s not expecting as she stares at him wide eyed. “Please.” 

He sighs, considering the possibility despite his better judgement. 

“I know I’m here all the time, alone, but, please, Will. I can’t, tonight, and I can’t, I can’t call Sarah.”

Sarah he figures is her sister and he wonders why she hadn’t mentioned Sheila who for whatever reason she seems to have a better relationship with. He wonders why it had to be here, why she had to be here, although that seems important to her too. He wonders why him and a million other things but he knows better than to ask right now.

“I—” he wavers for a second. “If you’re sure.” It’s a stupid thing to say. He doubts she’d rescind her offer even if she wasn’t, but she looks so relieved he doesn’t think about taking it back.

“I’m sleeping on the couch and you’re staying in your bed, with the door shut.” He tacks on and he’s reassured to hear her laugh. It’s a quiet kind of breathy giggle, one that sounds like maybe he’d surprised her or she’d surprised herself with the sound, her amusement or both.

“My mom, she keeps telling me,” Mac stops to bite her lip, stave off another giggle, “to move those damn books.” She grins at him. “I’ll move them for you, but you can’t tell.”

“No,” he smiles back at her because he’s beginning to understand the joke, the duplicity of it. The books would go back in front of the door in the morning like he’d never been here, but they’d both know, share the secret, the quiet rebellion that was more comfort than anything else right now. “I won’t say a word.”


End file.
